Original revisted

Cottonwood

LIke snow, they float,
Cottonwood seeds
From tall trees,
Here on summer solstice,
Where it's hot, hazy,
And flurrying. Flakes
Cling to my clothes,
Drift into my car. The
Light wind, it catches
The gossamer balls
On the ground
And whirls small
Single-helix tornadoes
Around my feet.

Journal
Summer finally here...temps over 90, humid, sunny. Trying to nurse some flowers seeds I planted along--although I am watering them twice a day they are not sprouting as they should. May be reduced to "plan B"--some ready-to-plant flowers from Wal-mart!

Busy last night--J.'s last t-ball game of the season. He got to bat last, and so got to hit the "home run," when all the kids run all the way around the bases. He grinned the whole way. Then got his first trophy, AND and ice-cream bar. It's great being almost five.

Quote
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today armyou against the present. -- Marcus Aurelius Antonius, "Meditations"

Link
Poets and Writers Online at: http://www.pw.org/

Classic
The Sound of the Trees
by: Robert Lee Frost

I WONDER about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.

The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write very time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything. -- John Irving

To be mature means to face, and not evade, every fresh crisis that comes. -- Fritz Kunkel

To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge. -- Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, 1845

Cottonwood

LIke snow, they float,
Cottonwood seeds
From tall trees,
Here on summer solstice,
Where it's hot, hazy,
And snowing. They
Cling to my clothes,
Fall in my car. The
Light wind, it catches
The gossamar balls
On the ground
And whirls small
Single-helix tornadoes
Around my feet.

Journal
Heard while walking through the shopping center:

Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young
I just looked around and he's gone.

Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young
I just looked around and he's gone.

Has anybody here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young
I just looked around and he's gone.

Didn't you love the things they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good in you and me?
And we'll be free
Someday soon
It's gonna be one day

Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walking up o'er the hill
With Abraham, Martin and John.

Strange reaction in a strange environment: walking on the sidewalk through the shopping center, soft June night, the song coming from the speakers placed in the flowerbeds. Tears in my eyes. Thinking of 9/11--what DID they stand for? Where HAVE they gone? Growing up in the '60s--going from age 4 to 14--it just seemed like one bad thing after another happened. No "summer of love" or "free love" for kids, as I was. Just the Vietnan dead count every night on the news, riots on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland ("I used to deliver milk on that street," said my dad), Kent State, and funerals on TV. The one good thing: man on the moon. Still, seemed stupid to want to cry at a song at the mall.

Quote
Abraham Lincoln, Address at the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, 19 November 1863

Fourscore and seven years ago
our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation,
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal…
In a larger sense we cannot dedicate,
we cannot consecrate,
we cannot hallow this ground.
The brave men, living and these dead, who struggled here,
have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember,
what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here
to the unfinished work
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced…
we here highly resolve that the dead
shall not have died in vain,
that this nation,
under God,
shall have a new birth of freedom;
and that government of the people,
by the people,
and for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln was wrong: the world did note, and has remembered, what he said; but how well can we learn the lessons his war taught? That we should learn from all wars, that they not be "in vain"? What are we learning from this war, on terror? And what terrorizes me--not just that "evil-doers" live in the US, use our facilities, then kill us--but that to "free" ourselves from them, we must curtail the very freedoms we enjoyed previously, the very freedoms that mean the most to us--freedom of speech, of movement, of THOUGHT. The future--it seems very cloudy to me, now. My gramma lived to be 101--if I should live to be that old, what world will I live in in 2056? For the first time, thinking about it is not exciting...but mostly scary.

Oh well--too heavy of thoughts for a Friday! I will exercise my freedom and think more positive.

Site of the Day
I have been reading Yahoo! Internet Life (http://www.yil.com) magazine for a long time and always enjoy it and learn something. Here's a link to their yearly article on useful sites. Will help you do anything from get the weather to manage your porfolio!
http://www.yil.com/features/feature.asp?Frame=false&Volume=08&Issue=07&Keyword=50useful

Classic Poem

Today is the first day of summer (9:24 a.m. EDT)...so one last word on spring from Rilke:

SPRINGTIME by Rainer Maria Rilke

Let's start again, says the Earth, start again,
it's my only chance.
And suddenly springtime cries out:
We're starting up again.

And everywhere action and activity,
such obedience.
And the heart we'd want to restrain starts
up again with one leap.

But the obedient Earth well knows
that she moves round and round,
whereas we hurtle down
toward infinity.

From The Complete French Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke
English language translation copyright (c)1986 by A. Poulin, Jr. All rights reserved.

Quotes for the Day

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. -- Rene Descartes

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper. -- Robert Frost

Journal
Clouds and sun today...some thunder this morning, a shower this afternoon. Ballgames last night; some sprinkles. To lunch downtown Huntington today, Heritage Days in full swing. A dinner out tonight for our 27th wedding anniversary. So long ago.

This one might be too new to be classic

"Let Evening Come," by Jane Kenyon from Otherwise: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press).

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

Quote

Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul;
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for though art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.
Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely the goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Journal Entry

Re-reading ...And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmeyer. How many times have I read it? Don't know. I lose myself in it each time. It's so long; such a mesh of history and story; such a true reflection of how people really were in the last 19th century, what they thought about, what they did, how they lived. My family thinks I am mad.

Reading outside last evening--at sunset. Venus shining, and Jupiter. The moon an askew, thin smile, sinking to the horizon.

Monday Journal
Just another weekend, but still--
Friday night in New Haven, Canal Days Festival, a long main street shut off from traffic and full of rides and junk food, people and noise and music. Walk further down and through the merchant's tent, the craft tent, the food. Taco salad and pizza, chicken and sandwiches of all kinds. Lemon shakeups. Candy apples and roasted almonds. Music from a covered stage. I know that somewhere in the world there is fighting in Afghanistan, terror in Israel, unrest in India and Pakistan. But here in New Haven, I sat on bleachers on a sweet late spring night and listened to an 18-year-old Elvis impersonator from Argos, Indiana, sing "Blue Hawaii." A different kind of terror, surely, though he was on-key and heartfelt. And we wondered, how does an 18-year-old from Argos ever decided to impersonate Elvis?

Saturday at the Wizards' game, another soft warm night. A small stadium full of people--baseball fans, Cub scouts, school groups. T. working in his booth on the concourse. Low-A baseball, young 20-somethings with dreams of bigger stadiums and paychecks. Subdued ball, most of the time. A spattering of applause for the home run, the play at the plate. Kids everywhere, running after the mascot, after the cotton-candy girl, to the rest room, back to mom. Then in the 7th, the song, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and everyone stood up and I have never heard it sung so sweetly, all those young boys' voices, unselfconcious and enthusiastic, and the sound floated through the night air as softly as a looper to left, and became a hymn to baseball and youth. Perhaps the kids will be okay.

Fireworks after, bright and loud and high, outshining the stars for a moment. We applauded with equal energy, and trailed home.

Home--kept the air conditioner off during the day both Saturday and Sunday, though the temperature was in the 80s and the humidity tropical. But to have the windows open to the sun and the breeze and the neighborhod, to welcome summer inside, was wonderful. After some chores and shopping, took my book out to the backyard and got the radio going, something to drink, my shades and my visor, and read, and baked a little. Heaven.

Finished About a Boy. Very good, nicely written, and very sad--at least to me. Marcus--anyone who's ever felt "different," any parent who's watched their child not fit in--breaks your heart. I don't know if I want to see the movie, or not. Still didn't make it to Star Wars, but I have confidence it will be in the theater awhile.
Monday, now--no H. He is just gone. That's what retirement means--he is just gone. Hard to grasp, but time will cure that. He's not coming back. I feel lighter.

First Thing

First thing this morning,
A summer sky, light blue
And the promise of later weather
In the dark shading of the horizon.
Maybe. Nothing substantial there.
Yet.
High above my car,
(I speed along),
A blue heron pumps long wings,
Driving with long, graceful neck,
Trailing long legs. Where
Does he go so early?
Surely he doesn's have to
Be at the pond by eight?
(As do I.) I don't think
The ducks will chart his arrival,
Nor the geese. And the frogs
Could care less, I know.
Still he flies, beyond my view,
Soon to land, as do I,
And get to work.
I think for my next career,
I'll be a heron. Hi, frog.

Quote
[Common sense] is the best sense I know of. -- Lord Chesterfield

Link of the Day
Let's just drop everything and go to the beach.

Journal
A busy night; J. over. Ballgame at 7; the skies had cleared but it was chill and very damp. J. enjoyed the game very much, though: found a dozen or so abandoned tennis balls. Also had brought his bubbles and blew them in the dugout, which I'm sure the young men appreciated. Home after 9. Much news this morning; a verdict (guilty) in the Skakel trial; a Phillipine missionary killed during his rescue; homeland security to be a Cabinet level position; Utah dad collapses under kidnap strain. At work, we celebrate the 50th birthday of a co-worker and the retirement of another.

Beautifully Classic
Geodes by Jared Carter

They are useless, there is nothing
To be done with them, no reason, only

The finding: letting myself down holding
The ironwood and the dry bristle of roots

Into the creekbed, into clear water shelved
Below the outcroppings, where crawdads spurt

Through silt; clawing them out of clay, scrubbing
Away the sand, setting them in a shaft of light

To dry. Sweat clings in the cliff's downdraft.
I take each one up like a safecracker listening

For the lapse within, the moment crystal turns
On crystal. It is all waiting there in darkness.

I want to know only that things gather themselves
With great patience, that they do this forever.

Copyright © 1981 by Jared Carter. All rights reserved. Cleveland State Univ Poetry Center; (October 1995). Order it at amazon.com: click here.

Might be my favorite poem--I love both WHAT it says, and how it is said. "It is all waiting there in darkness"--always reminds me of "now we see through a glass, darkly." Should it, I wonder?

Quote
"I want to know only that things gather themselves / With great patience, that they do this forever." Jared Carter

Link
Read an interview with Jared Carter at: http://www.edge-city.com/page3.htm

Here is a bastardized haiku about Indiana weather:

Death by Weather

The clouds gather.
The rain comes.
Comes the rain and gathers the clouds.
I am drowned.

Journal
Three days of unsettled weather, sun and clouds and heat and humidity, storms with winds, with hail, threatening us. Cooler weather to come, they say; tomorrow, more sun, less activity. We had a busy night, so it goes: a dinner out, a picture taken, a delivery made. The evening flies and all I am left with is a half-hour with a recliner and remote and my thoughts that turn to tomorrow, and feeling, little accomplished. But that is wrong: for yesterday I wrote two poems, and they stayed with me all day, and I worked and reworked them in my mind. And I thought of others I'd written, and how writing them makes me feel the best of anything I do. And I laugh a little at myself, for I know I am my own best audience, even my only one. Sometimes I think, what a useless thing, to be a bad poet, or a mediocre one, at any rate! But many people have hobbies and activities that seem to be of "little use," ("be of use," Dr. Larch told Homer in The Cider House Rules) and so I forgive myself! I am judging too much!

Classic
Given the spate of wedding we have attended and will attend lately, this one by Donald Hall is appropriate.

THE WEDDING COUPLE
by Donald Hall

Fifteen years ago his heart
infarcted and he stopped smoking.
At eighty he trembled
like a birch but remained vigorous
and acute.
When they married,
fifty years ago, I was twelve.
I observed the white lace
veil, the mumbling preacher, and the flowers
of parlor silence
and ordinary absurdity; but
I thought I stood outside
the parlor.
For two years she dwindled
by small strokes
into a mannequin--speechless almost, almost
unmoving, eyes open
and blinking, fitful in perception--
but a mannequin that suffered
shame when it stained the bed sheet.
Slowly, shaking with purpose,
he carried her to the bathroom,
undressed and washed her,
dressed her in clean clothes, and carried her back
to CNN and bed. "All
you need is love," sang John and Paul:
He touched her shoulder; her eyes
caressed him like a bride's bold eyes.

Copyright © 1996 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; May 1996; The Wedding Couple; Volume 277, No. 5; page 103.

Quoting
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite. -- Paul Dirac

Who is Paul Dirac? Find out here: http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1933/dirac-bio.html

Linking
Find out all the latest on the arts at ArtsJournal.com: http://www.artsjournal.com/

Walk at Noon work in progress

Walking down the little
Road on the edge of town
Over the noon hour,
A steel gray shadow
Gathers to the north
And gains form and function
Even as I walk and watch.

But it seems to move beyond,
So I turn my attention to the
Road before me, and what
Lies beside. Aisles of green.

Here are the wild raspberries,
Heavy with white flowers,
And I look forward three or
Four weeks to the edgy-sweet
Harvest I will make as I walk.
A robin calls above me.
A car swishes by.
I gather the flowers, by threes,
Road-kill flowers, I call them.
Who else would know
Of the graceful bouquet
They will make? Only me?

The dark purple clover,
The smaller white ones,
Both fragrant, round, many florettes,
The wild daisies, yellow and white,
The grasses, solomon's seal plucked
From the edge of a wood.

The storm skirts north of town,
As I must finish my walk,
Taking my harvest, drooping a little,
Back to work. But this afternoon,
I will bury my face in them,
And breathe, and be walking
Down the road once again,
The storm having passed.

Journal
A busy past few days, filled with a trip to the Chicago area, a wedding, a baseball doubleheader. The trip was dumb--10 hours in a van, round-trip, for four hours at a trade show in St. Charles. Not worth it! The traffic was terrible. The show small. The best thing was the lunch and speaker -- Thomas H. Groome of Boston College. Spoke with much humor.

The wedding was nicer, very sweet and one of the most serious weddings I've ever been to. Obviously the young people took the occasion very solemnly! But did it ever last a LONG time! We went to the church at 1:30 to deliver a camera...the wedding started at 2...the reception about 4...and we didn't leave until about 8:30. And of course, it was the most summer-like day of the year, which we had to spend inside. Oh well!

Sunday was very full, with a family birthday, some catch-up chores, and the aforementioned doubleheader starting at 4. Didn't finish up until 9, but at least it was very pleasant to be out. Then a pizza party and birthday cake with presents after. We certainly got the most out of Sunday!

Have started to read A Beautiful Mind. Read in the van Friday but didn't get much beyond the preface. She gives so much away there that I'm wondering what kind of excruciating detail I'm going to be subjected to in this thick book. Also got About a Boy from the library; I may read that concurrently as a diversion.

Quoting
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily taks, go to sleep in peace. God is awake -- Victor Hugo.

Linking
I have sworn off screensavers but am still addicted to pretty computer wallpaper. Here are two sites whose wallpaper are both pretty and useful (they have calendars): http://www.mamselle.ca and http://home.wnm.net/~debi/. I change mine about once a week.

Just Classic
Early Warning by Jared Carter

When the weather turned
Crows settled about the house
Cawing daylong among the new leaves.
It would be a hard spring,
Folks said, the crows —
They know. There are folks
up near where I come from
In Mississinewa County
Who study such things.
Folks who believe tornadoes
Are alive; that polluted streams
Rise from their beds
Like lepers, following after
Some great churning, twisted cloud.
With their own eyes
They've seen a cyclone stop,
Lap up electricity
From a substation, then make
A right-angle turn
And peel the roof off some
Prefabricated egg factory.
Thousands of hens, who've never seen
The light of the sun, or
Touched the earth with their beaks,
Go up the funnel like souls to God.

From Work, for the Night is Coming, copyright ©1979, 1995 by Jared Carter. Cleveland State Univ Poetry Center; (October 1995) . Click here to order from amazon.com.

An Indiana poet--is there a prettier word than "Mississinewa"? Or a more haunting description of a tornado?

Work in Progress

I think I am done working on "Twenty-three More Days," at least for now. Time to move on to something new.

Last Time [working title]

The last time I saw you,
You came into the room
And sat across from me,
Looked at me,
And smiled.

A song came on the radio
I liked, and I sung along
A second, and made you laugh.
Your guard was gone--
Just disappeared, and I
Wondered, even that day,
If it was right that one person
Could be so tranparent
To another. As you were to me.
Even without the later conversation.

That was long ago. And
Everything is over now,
As over as it was that day.
But sometimes I think of
That day, and that song,
And your look, and wonder---
Are you a book I could still read?

Copyright © 2002, all rights reserved.